The present invention is related to a pivoting handrail system for use in accessing the upper surface of a mobile container. Workers frequently require access to the upper surface of tanker trucks to perform daily maintenance and other tasks including opening and closing the hatches before and after loading, respectively. Accessing the upper surface of tanker trucks, however, is often a hazardous and dangerous task for a worker. The upper surface of the tank is typically cylindrical and often slippery causing frequent slips and falls by workers. Because of these hazardous conditions, it is known in the art to use fall protection/prevention measures such as safety cages to protect the worker.
Many of the larger loading stations however do not provide tanker truck access areas. Thus, a worker may perform checks and maintenance without any access and/or safety equipment. Alternatively, a worker may perform maintenance outside of the loading station facility by finding and driving to an access station having a safety cage both prior to and after loading to have the hatch opened and closed.
Standard safety cages, however, are ineffective and cumbersome to use. Typically several hatches are spaced along the upper surface of the tanker truck. If a retractable cage is used to provide fall protection while the worker is addressing each hatch, the cage must be placed over one hatch at a time. This typically means that, after the workman is finished with one hatch, he must exit the cage, raise the cage, move the cage along the length of the tank to the next hatch, lower the cage over the next hatch, and reenter the cage to access the hatch. Alternatively, instead of moving the cage from one hatch to the next, the tank can be moved beneath the cage, but raising and lowering the cage is still necessary. Both of these alternatives are tedious and time consuming. Another alternative is a fall protection cage that is large enough to cover multiple hatches. These cages have a deficiency in that the worker is not sufficiently surrounded by accessible handrails and the length of the cage may extend further than the extent of the tank being serviced, which creates a safety problem since the worker may fall into the void between the furthest rearward, or forward, extent of the tank and the cage.
Thus there is a need in the art for an efficient and effective device that provides safe access to the upper surface of a mobile container and particularly a tanker truck.